I very rarely lose my composure at work. But one recent morning, as I was reading over my boss’s mark-ups on a first-draft memo, I fell into a fit of giggles that made him stare at me as if I’d just sprouted a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead.
Trying to compose myself and force down the giggling I said, “Sometimes I wonder what you must think of the work I submit to you.”
Giving me that third-eyeball look, he queried “Why?”
“Because I got a word wrong from your written notes and the sentence read ‘Should we hire someone to immolate [this woman] and her family?’” {more giggling} {concerted effort to stifle giggling} “Do you know what immolate means?”
“Emulate? Sure!”
“No. Immolate. I-m-m-o-l-a-t-e. It means to sacrifice by fire.” {collapse into giggles}
“That would have been funny!”
“No. That would have been bad."
Good thing my boss has a good sense of humor! Even so, I'll be making a practice of looking up any unfamiliar words from now on!
[Title quote is from "The House Bunny"]
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
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1 comment:
not really the same but kind of I guess. I was talking to a regular client about the tea party. It led me to the word tea bagger and I told her I thought it sounded like a dirty word and went on and on about it. Little did I know it actually was a dirty word. When I mentioned it to Andy at home that night his face about fell off and after a quick Google I was friggin mortified.
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